Why You Need Club Membership Billing Software

Billing isn’t only about the collection of dues. It is a strategic tool that clubs can use to retain their members for a lifetime. By billing their clients right, clubs can continue renewing their memberships smoothly. However, this is easier said than done.

Club membership billing can quickly get out of hand if not managed using the right tools. It isn’t only about collecting payments and renewing members. It often includes more complicated tasks like managing membership pauses, adjusting dues based on upgrades or downgrades, applying discounts, and more.

To deal with such club-specific billing cases, memberships require an expert billing platform. Without further ado, let’s explore how club membership billing software transforms your club’s operations.

Challenges of Club Membership Billing

There’s a lot that goes into billing club members effectively. There are a number of billing challenges that a club’s administration must navigate through. Addressing these challenges successfully is important to keep operations hassle-free, and members retained.

These are some things that club membership billing entails that makes it challenging to handle:

Membership Tiers

Clubs typically offer various membership tiers, such as silver, gold and premium. Each tier’s members are entitled to different services. Their payments also differ on this basis. Clubs have to keep an organized member database that keeps track of their membership tiers, and invoices.

Seasonal Membership and Events

Clubs also sometimes offer seasonal memberships or limited-time events. These are only around for specific seasons, and have clear start and end dates. For instance, a swimming club membership that is only available in summer for the months of June, July and August.

These might be additional initiatives, alongside the clubs’ annual membership, and can certainly increase their billing workload. There might be new members joining for the seasonal membership only.

The club’s current members can also be interested in availing these opportunities. This requires setting up separate billing cycles for them. They pay for both their annual and seasonal memberships, and clubs have to ensure their payment cycles remain clear and intact.

Pauses and Cancellations

Members might request membership pauses for a variety of reasons. Suppose there’s a spa club that requires physical presence of its members due to the nature of its offering. Now there are some member of this club who have to travel for a month. It’s natural for them to pause their membership for that time to avoid being charged for services they have not availed.

You have done your part.
Let SubscriptionFlow take it from here!

Let us help your business grow with our powerful
subscription management software.

Similarly, there might be members that want to opt out of the club permanently, or temporarily but for a lengthy time period. If they cancel midway, they have to be refunded the unused part of their payment as well. All of these pause and cancellation scenarios require smart and automated billing management.

Both One-Time and Recurring Charges

Club members have to pay recurring dues. But they might also have to pay one-time fees in between. These fees may be associated with special add-ons or extra perks. Members may also buy these add-ons repetitively, for instance, every time they renew their membership. This also complicates billing as clubs have to deal with dual invoices for such customers.

How Club Membership Billing Software Solves These Challenges?

These are some ways in which club billing software simplifies payment processes:

Supports Tiered Billing

The software bills each member according to their membership plan or tier. Club admins can set up various tiers, and price them clearly. The software then tracks each member’s plan type on its own and calculates their charges. It automatically generates invoices and assigns them to the correct members.

Enables Multiple Billing Cycles

Clubs can support a number of billing cycles including the standard and the custom ones. For instance, monthly, every six months, and yearly cycles. It is their billing software’s task to keep these cycles functioning seamlessly, so that each client’s membership is renewed on the right dates.

Manages Pauses and Cancellations

Club billing software manages situations like pauses, plan changes and cancellations with grace. In case of pauses, it freezes the members’ cycles for the requested time period, and activates billing again when that period expires. And in case of membership plan changes, and mid-cycle cancellations, it calculates refunds accurately.

Offers Member Portals

Another key solution this software provides is self-service portals for the members. Members are able to perform simple management of their membership via these portals. For instance, they are able to modify their payment method, upgrade their plan, etc. Since these changes can be made by the members themselves, it reduces the admins’ workload.

What to Look for in A Club Billing Software?

Here are some essential features that make billing software capable for club billing needs:

Recurring Invoicing

Smart club billing software produces recurring invoices without requiring manual commands each time. This automation is important to speed up the billing processes, and receive payments without interruptions.

Wallet Functionality

Billing software must support the wallet feature for all your members where they can store their virtual points or coins. This feature is important for a club membership as it helps admins conduct loyalty programs, and give out rewards efficiently.

Rewards are in the form of digital points that get stored in the member’s wallet. These points can then be used to unlock interesting membership perks, such as discounts and exclusive event tickets.

Member Portals

Your software must enable member self-service portals as they increase member engagement. Members receive an overview of their membership plan, buying history, and previous invoices. On the other hand, admins enjoy less work since members do not need to ask them manually for simple tasks, including profile edits.

Add-on Management

Both recurring and one-time payments are managed side-by-side by the software. Members purchasing add-on services in the middle of their billing cycle can be immediately assigned invoices for their purchases.

If they buy a certain add-on each time their membership is renewed, admins can generate a single invoice for them too. It can contain both their plan and add-on charges.

Discount and Coupon Handling

If club admins assign discounts to members as part of their retention campaign, then their billing software must be able to handle them too. It must be able to apply the right discount percentage to the right member; in case each member is entitled to different discounts.

Hence, the software needs to manage recurring billing, add-on billing, and discount application simultaneously without any failure.

Scalability

Being able to scale your billing platform matters particularly if your membership spikes during some seasons, or during one-time events. A versatile billing engine can manage the additional load without collapsing and messing up billings. It is able to generate bills in bulk, and process the payment of every member automatically.

Why SubscriptionFlow is the Right Billing Solution for Clubs?

SubscriptionFlow offers all the must-have features in a club membership billing software. Here are some outstanding ones:

Unified Member Data

All member information, such as members’ names, status of invoice, and membership level can be viewed on a single dashboard. This avoids billing mistakes due to lost or misplaced information. Club administrators can easily view which of their members are active and inactive.

They are also able to monitor paused memberships, future renewals, and invoice statuses in real-time. Additionally, they can organize their members in various segments, such as by membership level. They can also handle different membership levels from one location.

Whenever a member updates their account through the member portal, their dashboard profile also updates automatically.

Custom Invoices

Clubs can set up different invoice formats for each membership tier. They can save these formats, and SubscriptionFlow generates invoices according to the saved formats automatically. Whenever a member’s payment is to be collected, they can be sent their personalized invoice for better engagement and impact.

Intelligent Analytics

Memberships can monitor their key analytics to measure their performance accurately. They can track metrics like member renewal rate, acquisition rate, and churn rate. They can also view their members’ activity and engagement levels, as well as their recurring revenue figures for financial planning.

Payment Retry Logic

SubscriptionFlow equips clubs with payment retry and dunning features. They ensure that payment failures don’t disrupt your revenue stream. So each time a member’s payment fails, it can be retried right away.

Payment attempts are carried out multiple times until the payment is recovered. And if it isn’t, then admins can rely on other dunning strategies also supported by SubscriptionFlow.

Native and Custom Checkout Support

Club membership sites can integrate with SubscriptionFlow’s custom checkout to facilitate new sign ups. This checkout enables a range of payment options for customers, and helps increase conversion rates.

Alternatively, they can go with their native checkout, and connect that with SubscriptionFlow. The billing software fetches the plan and payment details of their new members from the native checkout. It uses these details to set up new billing cycles automatically.

Choosing the right club billing software is important for giving your members the payment experience they deserve. Try SubscriptionFlow today, and upgrade your club’s recurring billing flows.